Mozambique to spend $500m on airports

Mozambique's airport company will spend $500m over three years to modernise its key facilities to encourage more foreign carriers to open routes to the country, its CEO said on Wednesday.

“Our aim is to attract more regional and international companies to fly to Mozambique as well as to attract more tourists into the country,” Aeroportos de Mocambique boss Manuel Veterano told AFP.

“Over the next three years, we will invest $500m for the rehabilitation and modernisation of the airports of Maputo, Pemba, Nacala and Tete,” he said.

“The expectation is that investments will result in raising the level of utilisation of national airport infrastructures, by increasing traffic and also passengers.”

The northern coastal town of Pemba is a tourist draw, while the port town of Nacala is near new offshore gas finds and the mining town of Tete sits amid huge coal deposits.

Veterano did not say how the upgrades would be financed. The company’s profits fell 74% in 2011 to $2m.

- AFP